No Guru, No Method, No Teacher by Van Morrison

No Guru, No Method, No Teacher, Van Morrison's sixteenth studio album, landed on Mercury in 1986 with Morrison producing himself, and the title reads like a mission statement from a man who had always gone looking for the sublime on his own terms. This is Van in the spiritual, searching mode of his Celtic soul, the long, contemplative strain of his catalogue that runs back to Astral Weeks, rather than the punchy R&B side.

"In the Garden" is the heart of it and the song that found its way to the countdowns: patient, hushed, and gathering intensity the way Van the Man's best meditations do. Critics warmed to the album on release, and it made number 27 in the UK and number 70 on the Billboard 200.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.